Clock signals are commonly used to synchronize processing, sample data, and perform general timing coordination in electrical systems. The widespread use of clock signals makes proper maintenance of their frequency and phase extremely important. The phase locked loop (“PLL”) is a well known mechanism for performing this maintenance, often aligning the clock signal with an incoming data stream.
Unfortunately, certain applications make clock synchronization especially difficult. For instance, optical systems often read data from media such as compact discs (“CDs”), which store the data in circular spiral tracks. Since the reader on many such systems advances along the spiral track at a substantially constant angular velocity, the data rate changes continuously. That is, the data rate near the center of a CD is relatively slow, while the data rate near the edge of a CD is relatively fast.
Optical systems thus give rise to the problem of aligning a clock signal to data whose frequency and phase vary continuously. Most PLLs are well adapted to locking onto a fixed frequency and phase, then maintaining the locked state. Thus, common PLL circuitry is often poorly suited to demands such as those posed by optical systems.
In view of the foregoing, it would be desirable to provide circuitry and methods that can synchronize a clock signal to data whose frequency and phase vary continuously. In addition, it would be desirable for such circuitry and methods to operate across a wide range of possible frequencies, while maintaining a high degree of precision.